In June, the Republican presidential candidate visited a shooting range in Iowa and on the weekends he apparently takes time to prepare breakfast on the barrel of a gun.
Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

Food safety experts and gun experts have warned against cooking bacon on the barrel of a machine gun, after Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz released a video showing him doing just that.

The film, published on conservative website IJReview, shows Cruz carefully wrapping rashers around the barrel of what appears to be a semi-automatic rifle. The Texas senator then fires off several rounds, apparently cooking the bacon from the heat of the weapon.

“There are few things I enjoy more than on weekends cooking breakfast with the family,” Cruz says in the video, titled Making Machine-Gun Bacon with Ted Cruz.

“Of course in Texas, we cook bacon a little differently than most folks,” he adds.

However when the Guardian contacted FoodSafety.gov – a federal website dedicated to promoting safe food consumption – a representative said the Texas method of bacon-cooking was unsafe.

“I do not recommend cooking bacon that way,” a FoodSafety.gov representative said during an online chat.

“There is no way to accurately tell if the bacon is getting the proper amount of heat using this form of cooking.”

Hygiene could be a problem as well, the representative said.

“Cleanliness is also a concern here. You want to make sure the surface you are using to prepare food is well sanitized and clean. The end of a machine gun is not recommended.”

In the video Cruz, who is hoping to become the Republican candidate for the White House, is shown applying the bacon directly to the barrel of his gun. The senator carefully wraps tinfoil around his rashers before firing at a target.

Gun manufacturers Smith and Wesson also advised against this method of cooking.

“We certainly wouldn’t recommend you cooking bacon on that,” a representative said. “I don’t think the gun is designed to cook bacon.”

Using a gun to cook bacon could also have other implications.

“It’s grease,” the Smith and Wesson representative said. “It’s not designed to do that and if anything bad was to happen it wouldn’t be covered under the warranty that’s for sure.”